In 1854 Tulare County supervisors authorized construction of a 16' x 16' oak log structure with a courthouse upstairs and a jail downstairs, replacing the earlier practice of chaining the most dangerous prisoners to a large oak log in the open. In 1858 a brick courthouse was built with the jail again on the ground floor, where prisoners were still placed in chains bolted to the oak floor, and it served both the county and the city of Visalia. In 1870 the county jail ceased to be used as a city jail, and in August of that year the Visalia Delta objected after noticing a city prisoner chained to an oak tree in the courthouse yard; three years later a 14' x 24' city jail was built. In 1876 a new courthouse with a ground-floor jail replaced earlier jails that were too small for the growing county and not escape proof. In 1890 a new county jail was built on this site of brick, two stories high with a basement, and was considered escape proof. In September of 1891 Grat and William Dalton of the Dalton Gang were imprisoned there on suspicion of train robbery; Grat was found guilty, while the other gang members returned to Indian territory. After boasting that the jail would not hold him and having other prisoners sing loudly for two days to conceal the sound of sawing his cell bars, Grat escaped during the night of September 27, 1891. The jail originally fronted on Church Street, but when rebuilt in 1918 its entry was moved to the Oak Street side, where it remained.